Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced a second trial this month on seven counts of foreign lobbying violations and witness tampering.

Reports have surfaced this morning that Manafort will plead guilty to two criminal charges. Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed superseding criminal information, which “typically precedes a guilty plea, and a plea hearing for Manafort has been scheduled for 11 a.m. in federal court in Washington, D.C.”

*UPDATE

Manafort has officially pleaded guilty in a federal court and this includes cooperating with Mueller. From Politico:

The deal dismisses deadlocked charges against Manafort from an earlier trial, but only after “successful cooperation” with Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow on its efforts. Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann did not immediately expand on what cooperation is required under the deal.

The agreement also calls for a 10-year cap on how long Manafort will be sent to prison, and for Manafort to serve time from his separate Virginia and Washington cases concurrently. But it will not release Manafort from jail, where he has been held since Mueller’s team added witness tampering charges during the run-up to the longtime lobbyist’s trial.

Manafort addressed U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a soft voice, saying “I do” and “I understand” as she asked him whether he understood what rights he’s giving up. A deputy marshal stood directly behind Manafort, a reminder that he remains in custody.

Politico also reported that legal experts believe this plea deal is a win for both sides:

Manafort gets a potentially shorter sentence and lessens his legal bills. Trump avoids several weeks of bad headlines ahead of the midterm elections about his corrupt former campaign aide. And Mueller — faced with Trump’s constant claims that his probe is a witch hunt — gets to show yet again that his charges are not fabricated and can now divert resources to other elements of his Russia probe.

But the prospect of Manafort’s cooperation with Mueller throws into doubt how much of a win the deal could be for Trump. In addition to running Trump’s campaign for several months, Manafort attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting where Trump aides thought they might get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

*From earlier this morning…

In August, a federal jury convicted Manafort “of not reporting to tax authorities more than $16 million he earned for political consulting work in Ukraine in the early 2010s.” He faces 8 to 10 years in prison.

In connection with the agreement, Mr. Manafort agreed to forfeit four of his multi-million-dollar homes, including a Brooklyn townhome and an estate on Long Island, and funds in multiple bank accounts. Other terms of the deal couldn’t immediately be determined, including whether they include any requirement for Mr. Manafort to cooperate in Mr. Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links to the Trump campaign.

Mr. Manafort has resisted any notion of cooperating with Mr. Mueller, and his lawyer said at the outset of the Virginia trial that there was no chance of such cooperation.

So maybe pleading guilty and cooperating is actually a good thing for Manafort simply because he can cooperate as much as he wants but he has nothing on Russian collusionz because no collusionz actually took place.

So he is in a win-win situation.

So this poses an interesting question. What happens when the Judge delivers her sentence and then Trump comes along and pardons him? He is free and he no longer has to co-operate OR does he have to co-operate regardless?

As soon as the election is over, I predict Trump will fire Sessions, have his replacement fire Rosenstein and Mueller, have his replacement announce the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the last administration’s conduct, and issue pardons to all that were subject to the Mueller investigation.

This is actually win-win on both sides if I read this right:
Mueller doesn’t have to take the case all the way through trial and run the risk of one skeptical juror spiking the whole mess, and Manafort doesn’t have to go through the whole mess and run the risk of the judge giving him the maximum of three centuries of jail time.

Instead, Manafort gets a sentence that parallels the one from the previous trial so no additional time in jail, and his testimony in the Russian Influence Crime Of The Century will (most likely) consist of what he has said so far, i.e. nil.

The part I found most interesting is that the plea comes with asset surrender. So… who gets the jacket? And those wonderful homes? After all, if fraud has been committed, shouldn’t these assets go to the defrauded? And if fraud had been committed, where are the lawsuits? Won’t they have first dibs on the stuff, predating the Feds?

Oh, now *that* would be the way to start out your testimony to the Special Counsel.

“Since we agree that foreign influence in US elections is a problem, I’ve put together a list of fifteen high-ranking Democrats and Democrat contributors who may have been influenced by Russia, China, or other major powers…”

Or get what dirt there is on Podessta brothers so the SC can call them in, and give them deals so nothing can happen to them later… they’ll say they either gave them deals, OR they looked into the allegations and determined there was nothing there, and for some other to go after them would be political payback and unethical. Just watch. I think they’re all getting away with it. they control the levers and the media.. and they know at some point, everyone will just want to ” move on “. The bastages.

That is something that struck me; he plead guilty to conspiracy involving stuff before he worked for Trump, but that doesn’t seem to follow that that helps them build a conspiracy case against Trump at all.

If Manafort had information showing Trump colluded with the Russians he would have happily traded it for Mueller dropping or severely reducing the charges. Why would Manafort prefer to go to jail? Certainly Manafort knew he had a terrible case and would like any other person facing jail made a deal. He had nothing and couldn’t give Mueller anything. What is interesting is since Weissmann was in constant contact with Bruce Ohr he knew everything about the Trump Tower meeting because Fusion GPS was intimately involved in it. Weismann already knows all there is to know about the meeting and there is nothing Manafort can give them.

” . . .the prospect of Manafort’s cooperation with Mueller.” and
“We do not know yet if Manafort agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.”

Let me see if I can explain the context of these statements within the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Clearly, the fact that Manafort is pleading guilty to a federal charge is evidence of “cooperation” with the prosecutors. A defendant’s sentence is based on accumulation of points for various factors: amount of money involved; prior criminal history, etc. By avoiding a trial and cooperating (by pleading guilty), the defendant is awarded “credits” in mitigation of the points accumulation in the sentencing guidelines. In other words, he is “cooperating”, whether or not he says anything good or bad against President. Trump.

One more comment. Manafort can cooperate with Mueller if he is inclined to move against Tony Podesta and all members of that firm who failed to register as a foreign agent, one of the crimes set out in his plea. This type of “cooperation” is designed to mitigate his exposure to a long prison term.

Can anyone explain why the Russians would have wanted Trump to win over Hillary? They already knew they could buy Hillary, she was the way and away favorite and she shares far more values with Russia than does Trump.

Even though “cooperation” will be spun by the media as “russian collusion” in orgasmic fashion it should be noted that cooperation has a much broader definition than at first since the investigation has gone so far afield of its original mandate.